Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.30

v2.c11.30

Still more splendidly than here does the man's love for his chosen one shine in the legend of Ruru (i, 8.5 ff.) : "There was once a great Ṛishi, endowed with asceticism and knowledge, famed under the name of Sthūlakeça, gladly given up to the welfare of all beings. Now at this very time the king of the Gandharvas, named Viçvāvasu, begot offspring with Menakā. The Apsaras Menakā exposed this child near by the hermitage of Sthūlakeça, when her time had come. And having left the child on the river-bank, she went away, she the Apsaras Menakā, ruthless and without shame. This girl like a child of the gods, blazing, as it were, with the splendor of beauty, that was exposed on the river-bank, and in the unpeopled wilderness bereft of her kindred, was seen by the great Ṛishi, the majestic Sthūlakeça. Now when the great Brahman Sthūlakeça had seen this maiden, the best among Munis, filled with pity, took her and brought her up. And she with the lovely hips grew up in his holy and glorious hermitage. The religious rites—the birth ceremony, and so forth—were carried out over her by the very great Ṛishi Sthūlakeça, the famous one, according to precept and in order. But she was the most excellent of women (pramadābhyo varā), gifted with loveliness of character and form, wherefore the great and holy man gave her the name Pramadvarā. This Pramadvarā was seen in the penitential grove by (the scion of Bhr̥igu) Ruru, and he with the soul of right and virtue was at once struck down by love. Through his friends he then sent word of it to his father, the Bhr̥igu scion Pramati, and the father asked for her hand from the high and glorious Sthūlakeça. Thereupon her father gave the maiden Pramadvarā to Ruru, fixing the wedding beforehand for the time of the constellation that has Bhaga for god.¹ A few days later, when the wedding was just nigh, this lovely-faced maiden was playing with her girl-friends, and did not see a snake fast asleep and stretched right across (the path). She trod with her foot on the beast, since she was doomed to death and driven on by fate. The snake, goaded on by the god of death, struck with its poison-smeared fangs deep into the heedless girl’s body. Bitten by this snake, she fell suddenly to the ground, robbed of all colour and of her splendour, as her charms and consciousness fled from her. Taking all joy from her kindred, her hair unbound, abandoned by life—so was she, that was most worthy of beholding, taken from their sight.¹ And it was as though she, slain by the snake’s poison, had gone to sleep on the ground; the slender one was far more fascinating still to the heart. And her father and the other penitents saw her in her lotus-like glory fall quivering on the ground. Then came all the excellent Brahmans, filled with pity : Svastyātreya, Mahājanu, Kuçika, Caṅkhamekhala, Uddālaka, and Kaṭha, and Çveta, the greatly renowned, Bharadvāja, Kauṇakutsya, Ārṣṭiṣeṇa; then Gautama, Pramati with his son, as also other forest-dwellers. When they saw the lifeless maiden, slain by the poison of the snake, they wept for the pity that was in them; but Ruru went forth tormented by suffering. And all those excellent Brahmans sat themselves down at that very spot.